Presentation given at the 1st International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference, www.consumer-brand-relationships.org Copyright by Hazel Huang

1. Self-Identity and Brand Choice:
A Brand Relationship Perspective
Hazel H. Huang
Durham Business School, U.K.
24 April 2010
First International Colloquium on Consumer Brand Relationships

4. The Brand Relationship Myth
• Does the brand relationship metaphor
really exist?
– Yes: Fournier (1998) and many others
– No: Bengtsson (2003) and O’Malley and
Tynan (1999)
• How do we prove its existence if it exists?:
the theoretical grounding
– Close Relationships as Including Other in the
Self by Aron, Aron, and Nelson (1991)

5. Research Questions
1. To what extent do consumers use the
relationship metaphor to describe their
brands?
2. If the consumers are able to characterize
a brand relationship, to what extent do
consumers reflect the brand relationship
to their self-identities?

6. Research Design – RQ 1
• 11 in-depth interviews
• British Caucasian undergraduate students
aged 18-21
• Semi-structured interview
– Talking about themselves
– Talking about brands and brand personality
– Talking about brand relationship

7. Findings – In-Depth Interview
1. Most were able to describe their relationships with their
brands.
• It’s [Kellogg’s cornflakes] very temperamental. I think if we just
had a friendship, it would be a friendship of convenience, where
you would drop in and out. If you were going along fine and there
were other things to do and other people to see then you wouldn’t
go there. On the other hand, if you sort of thought, oh, I would
really like to see this person again, then it would always be there to
back you up. …I think Primark is like a new friend. It is the kind of
friend where you would go there first and they would be able to
give you the right sort of advice. It is a very exciting and new
friendship, but it’s becoming more steady. … Yes, the relationship
is settling down.
[Katie] m

8. Findings – In-Depth Interview
2. But some showed difficulties in articulating the
relationship.
Q: Would you think of your car as a person?
A: My car is a he and he’s called Bob.
Q: Why Bob?
A: It’s just Bob. And I tend to say, hang on, where’s Bob, to
my housemates.
Q: So, your friends know about Bob?
A: Yeah. They know I refer to it as Bob.
Q: Why did you name your car?
A: I don’t know… I don’t know…
[Robbie]

9. Findings – In-Depth Interview
3. A dramatic experience needed to trigger the relationship
metaphor.
• Yeah, [I found I was attached to the car] probably after it was
crashed. I loved my car when I had it, but I didn’t realize I
would miss it.
[Lauren]

10. Research Design – RQ 2
• H1: There is a positive relationship between
consumer-brand congruence and brand
relationship quality.
• H2: The relationship between self-identity
reflection and brand relationship is consistent
across symbolic and utilitarian products.
Consumer-Brand
Congruence
Brand Relationship
Quality

11. Research Design – RQ 2
• Consumer-brand congruence = |
consumer personality – brand personality|
• Product pre-tests – the FCB grid
• Randomly assigning one product to one participant
• Each participant asked to rate their favourite or most-frequently-used
brands
• 468 questionnaires returned, 90 brands evaluated
– Jeans: 112; Soft drinks: 116; Laptop computers: 114; Dish-washing
detergents: 126
Laptop Computer Jeans
Dish-washing
detergents
Soft drinks
Thinking Feeling
High
Involvement
Low
Involvement

12. Results: H1 was supported
Consumer-Brand
Congruence
Brand
Relationship
Quality
.12 (2.47)
χ2=54.79, df=20, p<.01; SRMR=.03; RMSEA=.061, 90% C.I.: [.042, .081];
TLI=.98; CFI=.99

13. Results: H2 is supported
• H2: The relationship between self-identity
reflection and brand relationship is
consistent across symbolic and utilitarian
products.
• F(3, 460) = 2.23, p >.05

14. Does brand relationship
exist?
• Meanbrand relationship quality < 2.5 (5-point Likert-type
scale).
• Meanbrand relationship quality < 4.5 (10-point Likert-type
scale) (Park et al., 2002)

15. Summary
• Good Brand Relationships as Including the
Brand in the Self
• Significant brand experience is key to identity
reflection (consumer-brand congruence), but
being able to imagine a relationship with their
brands and recognize them as favourite brands
is critical to identify a relationship with the
brands.
• Brand relationship does exist, but weakly.
– Methodologically:
• Consumers’ difficulty in articulating a brand relationship or
their lack of awareness
• Does the current scale capture brand relationship quality
successfully?

16. Thank you!